National Croissant Day

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Today is the birthday of the State of Hawaii, which joined the Union today in 1959. Its state fish, reputed to be the smallest fish in the world, is the humuhumunukunukuapua’a. Its name makes up an entire line in the song My Little Grass Shack. Hawaiian food is distinctive, being a merging of Japanese, American, and aboriginal cooking styles. They have some distinctive ingredients. Their fish include not only the familiar mahi-mahi (a lot of which is imported to Hawaii from Gulf waters) but the excellent opakapaka and the moonfish. Pineapple has always been a major element of Hawaiian cooking, both as a main item and as a marinade. Lately they've also begun making a big deal about their home-grown chocolate and Kona coffee. Their kiawe wood (a mesquite) is supposed to be the world's hottest-burning wood for grilling purposes. Because of an odd quirk in their eating habits decades ago, Hawaiians are the world's leading consumers of Spam, to which entire cookbooks there are dedicated.

This is the birthday, in 1904, of jazz legend Count Basie. Basie led his own big band for decades. He had an immediately recognizable sound, one that gets better the more you listen to it. My favorite of his immense catalog of tunes: "Li'l Darlin'," which I use as the closing theme of my radio show. Basie and a jazz critic were listening to another performer in a club somewhere one night. The critic said, "He sounds good, but I'm not sure if he is good." Basie turned to him and said, "If it sounds good, it is good." From that I get:

If it tastes good, it is good.

Dinner Station is in the desolate northeast corner of Nevada, twenty-four miles northwest of Elko. It's a ghost town now, save for the people who live in the reconstructed roadhouse on the highway. Dinner Station is descriptively name: it was a stagecoach stop as long ago as the 1860s, appearing around the time that the first American transcontinental railroad was building through this part of the country. The population peaked in the early 1900s. After that, automobiles put the stagecoach out of business. Dinner Station became a not-very-successful ranch. To get dinner now you have to head back to Elko and the interestingly-named Arctic Circle. (It does get very cold here in the winter.)

Cornish pasty, [PASS-tee], n.--Better known in Cornwall, England than the Cornish hen is this meat-filled, baked turnover made with pie crust. Part of the traditional presentation is to have the seam folded over and crimped in such a way as to resemble a braid along the curved edge. The classic filling is beef with cubes of potatoes and rutabagas (the Brits call that last, turnip-like vegetable "swede"), all in a thick brown gravy. They have always been popular, but in recent years chains of shops specializing in pasties have spread. They fill the pies with many nobn-traditional things, from seafood to cheese, as well as sweets. Some are even made with meat on one end of the pasty and sweet fillings on the other, to make a whole meal.

This is National Croissant Day. A croissant is a square of dough folded over and rolled out many times to create layers, with butter between the layers. Then the baker rolls it up along the diagonal and curves it around into a crescent. That seems to make it bake better, as the layers pop up a bit as they bake. I've been told that a proper croissant will curl up into a crescent in the oven on its own.The mythology of the croissant is that it was invented during the Ottoman Empire's siege of Vienna, and that it represents the crescent of the Islamic invaders. I don't believe this is true. Croissants don't seem to have made the scene until the middle 1800s, when the Turkish Empire was crumbling. And why would the Viennese want to remind themselves of the crescent at a time like that?A well-made croissant is a rare thing indeed. Most of them--especially the ones you get in supermarkets--are pretty bad. The good ones contain so much butter that it's absurd to add any more. They have an interesting texture that has a certain pull to it--quite different from bread. The yeast component is less than in most breads, and the water content of the butter gives it that intriguing crust that shatters into a million thin flakes.The temptation to warm a croissant is strong, but resist it. A hot croissant collapses on itself. Slightly warm is as far as I go; the temperature inside a baker's glass case seems to be about perfect. Freshness is a big issue. While you can keep a croissant in good shape wrapped and refrigerated for a day or two, they're best within a few hours after they emerge from the oven.

Today is the feast day of Notre Dame de Bon Secours, or Our Lady Of Prompt Succor. That honorific for Mary was created by Mother Saint Michel of the Ursulines Convent in New Orleans, during turmoil following Napoleon's brief rule over the city. It was approved by the pope in 1809, and has been observed in New Orleans ever since. Many Orleanians still pray for intercession of Our Lady of Prompt Succor during hurricane season--which is nearing its peak right now.

Twenty-five million pounds of hamburger meat was recalled by a Nebraska beef-processing facility today in 1997, because of e. coli problems. They ultimately shut the whole plant down. While I don't think this is cause to never eat hamburgers again, it did make a lot of people start grinding their own beef, which is a good thing.

On this day in 1938, Fats Waller recorded what would be his most famous song, Ain't Misbehavin'. . . British opera singer Janet Baker was born today in 1933. . . Albert J. Beveridge, Jr., a newspaper columnist and Indiana politician, was born today in 1908.

"Bakers of bread rolls and pastry cooks will not buy grain before eleven o'clock in winter and noon in summer; bakers of large loaves will not buy grain before two o'clock. This will enable the people of the town to obtain their supply first. Bakers shall put a distinctive trademark on their loaves, and keep weights and scales in their shops, under penalty of having their licenses removed."--Cardinal Richelieu.No wonder French bakers take themselves so seriously.

"Independence is a heady draught, and if you drink it in your youth, it can have the same effect on the brain as young wine does. It does not matter that its taste is not always appealing. It is addictive and with each drink you want more."--Maya Angelou.